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20 March 2019


(Im)Politeness and power in reported interactions between voice-hearers and their voices

Zsófia Demjen

Voice-hearing is reported by approximately 70% of individuals with diagnoses on the schizophrenia-spectrum, but a sizable minority cope well with such experiences (Jenner et al. 2008). A key factor seems to be hearers’ perceptions of the power of the voices to influence their actions and mental states and the extent to which they in turn feel in control of their own thinking and of the voices’ behaviour.

In this talk, I report on a pilot study (with Agnes Marszalek, Glasgow International College, Elena Semino, Lancaster University, and Filippo Varese, University of Manchester) investigating how 10 voice-hearers with diagnoses of schizophrenia describe their interactions with hallucinatory voices in semi-structured clinical interviews. I focus particularly on the implications of (im)politeness phenomena in reported interactional behaviour for the relationship between voice and hearer, including for relative power and control. I show the ways in which the voices are reported to attack or, more rarely, enhance, different aspects of the hearer’s ‘face’ (Spencer-Oatey 2002, 2007, 2008), and argue that impoliteness, in particular, can be one of the ways in which the voices exercise control over the hearer (e.g. via insults like “you fucking dog”, but also more indirectly via challenging questions, like “Why would you want to do something with your life?”) (cf. Culpeper 2011).

I discuss how distress seems to correlate with asymmetrical power relationships, severe impoliteness behaviours from voice to hearer, targeting multiple aspects of the person. I suggest ways in which this kind of analysis might feed into existing therapies of voice-hearing in schizophrenia and psychosis.

References

Culpeper, J. (2011), Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jenner, J. A., S. Rutten, J. Beuckens, N. Boonstra, and S. Sytema (2008), ‘Positive and Useful Auditory Vocal Hallucinations: Prevalence, Characteristics, Attributions, and Implications for Treatment’, Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 118 (3), 238–45.

Spencer-Oatey, H. (2002), ‘Managing Rapport in Talk: Using Rapport Sensitive Incidents to Explore the Motivational Concerns Underlying the Management of Relations’, Journal of Pragmatics, 34 (5), 529–545.

Spencer-Oatey, H. (2007), ‘Theories of Identity and the Analysis of Face’, Journal of Pragmatics, 39 (4), 639–656.

Spencer-Oatey, H. (2008), ‘Rapport management: A framework for analysis’, in H. Spencer-Oatey (ed) Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, 2nd edn, 11–47, London and New York: Continuum.